Do you remember carrying out practical experiments involving concepts from Physics, Chemistry and Biology? Usually, these experiments were conducted in labs under the strict supervision of teachers because of the ever-present fear of a lab accident.
Well, LIFE (Learning Is Fun & Experiential) Labs is a social enterprise that is dedicated to making learning fun for students and is using an approach where students don’t have to be tied to the limitations imposed by the traditional classrooms.
Lewitt Somarajan, the founder and CEO of LIFE Labs is a former engineer who was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. He started the organisation to fill the void of experiential learning in our education system.
LIFE Lab’s mission is to create experiential learning environments by providing innovative and disruptive teaching-learning methods that are fun, engaging and conducive for children to develop a scientific temperament.
To know more about LIFE Labs and Lewitt Somarajan’s initiative, you can read this article.
Many schools across India do not have high-tech infrastructure or laboratories with expensive instruments, and LIFE Labs provides them with easy-to-operate DIY activity kits and demos that describe science concepts in a fun and engaging way.
But now it is not only about the way they teach but with what they teach with.
The experimental kits distributed by LIFE Labs were mostly made of plastic, and last year, at a team meeting, it was revealed that 700 kg of plastic waste was being generated by the organisation, every year.
In an interview with The Logical Indian, Adwita Desai, the company’s R&D head said, “This huge amount of plastic waste contributes to a high carbon-dioxide emission. That is when we were motivated to look for alternatives as soon as possible.”
So to counteract the waste produced, the organisation is going green by introducing apparatuses made from materials that can easily be recycled and reused. For example, plastic cups have been replaced by paper cups and paper and cloth bags have displaced plastic bags.
The team took this effort one step ahead by advising the students about the benefits of going plastic free in their everyday lives, and helping them make decisions which are not only backed by science are also environmentally conscious.
“If a child sees a plastic bag being replaced by a cloth bag in his experiment, it will naturally kindle his or her curiosity. When the reason is explained in detail, it triggers the sense of awareness in the child. So much so, that apart from rejecting plastic themselves, they are also influencing their elders to opt for a greener lifestyle,” said Adwaita.
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)
Hey, you may also like: Water for Plastic: IIT Bombay Students Invent Machine to Reduce Waste and Quench Thirst
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